The CRTC has heeded a plea from the CBC, backed by several major cultural groups, to extend the deadline for comments about sharing future television benefits with the Canadian Television Fund.

The deadline, originally this Monday, will now come two weeks after the federal government officially responds to the CRTC’s report on the CTF, though, given the looming election, it is anyone’s guess when such a response may be forthcoming — certainly not for months.

Last month the CBC asked to delay the comments deadline until after ‘the Department of Canadian Heritage has determined the future structure of the CTF and the Commission has completed its review of new media,’ according to CRTC documents. The request was endorsed by ACTRA, the CFTPA, the DGC, the WGC, Quebecor Media and others.

The CRTC’s June 2008 CTF report calls for the fund to be split into two separate streams. One would be for ratings-driven programming, the other for the public sector. The report also wants new funding to be found for new media production.

The commission’s position is opposed by the CFTPA. ‘We’ve been down the two-stream road before and it did not work,’ CFTPA president and CEO Guy Mayson told Playback Daily at the time of the report’s release.